Devil in the Detail
by SamCyberCat
Summary: Flora finds an unusual new hobby that she wants to take up.


**Notes:** Written for kinkmeme prompt that wanted Don Paolo teaching Flora about the art of disguise. Set sometime post-PL3, with some spoilers for Pandora's Box and Lost Future.

* * *

"The Professor isn't here right now, but I can get you a cup of tea if you'd like to wait for him to get back."

That had been how it had all started.

As embarrassing as it was for Don Paolo to admit, ever since he'd helped save the day when that deranged brat had tried to crush London with a mechanical fortress no one seemed to see him as being a bad person anymore. Any attempts me made to make Layton's life miserable just seemed to fall flat, because Layton considered them to be friends now.

And so, it seemed, did his daughter, Flora.

Which had led to a few occassions when Don Paolo had broken into Layton's house, only to be sat down with a nice cup of tea and an inedible scone, before being told to wait until Layton got back from work. It was seriously destroying his reputation. Even more so when you considered that the whole thing could be avoided if he just learned Layton's work schedule better. Admittedly, he was just so used to the man going off on wild adventures that it was hard to think of him as being at Gressenheller University long enough to even have a schedule.

"It is very nice to have someone to talk to, actually," Flora said, on one such occassion when she'd walked in to find Don Paolo trying to sneak into the broom closet and instead brought him through to the living room, "It gets rather lonely waiting around for him to get back. Of course, I understand that his school day is longer than mine and sometimes he does have to work weekends, but all the same a girl does like a bit of company, you know?"

"Hmm," muttered Don Paolo, dismissively.

"Although, if you do have other errands to see to I can always tell him you dropped by when he gets back," she added, noting the impatience.

"No, I'll wait," Don Paolo assured her. Somehow having Layton told he'd come here was more embarrassing than being there himself waiting for him. He didn't trust Flora to pass on any messages he had for Layton with the correct amount of yelling.

Clearly running out of things to say, Flora tried to make light conversation; "Have you... made any good disguises lately?"

"What?" Don Paolo replied, raising an eyebrow at her.

"You know, all of those disguises of yours," she clarified, "You always do such a good job of imitating people that there's no way you're not making those costumes yourself."

"Ah, well, yes. I am. You didn't think that I could just walk into a shop and buy a Dr. Schrader outfit, did you?" he sneered.

"Or an outfit of me," Flora added.

"Um, quite right," mumbled Don Paolo. He'd been hoping she wouldn't bring that up.

"When the Professor and Luke were telling me about it, I was amazed," Flora went on, "They had no idea it wasn't really me for a while, so you must have done a brilliant job of impersonating me."

"It's not just about the outfit," Don Paolo informed, feeling awkward that they were even talking about this, "I mean, of course the outfit is very important and if it's not convincing enough then nothing else is going to work either. But if you don't act exactly like the person you're pretending to be then people pick up on it really quickly. Especially people like Layton. Though he usually figures it out eventually anyway..."

"But to have him fooled for even a little while must feel quite exciting," Flora insisted.

"Yes, yes it does," he agreed.

"You must have so much fun. I wish that I could become someone else, just for a short time, and then surprise everyone when it turns out to be me," she giggled.

"Kid, aren't you creeped out by what I do?" he checked, "Most people are."

"Not at all! I'd love to learn how to use disguises like you can," she replied.

"You ever made a costume before?"

"No."

"Can you sew?"

"I've... done a little sewing before."

"How are you at impersonating voices?"

"Luke tells me I can do a really funny impression of Inspector Chelmey when I want to."

"Right, we'll see what we can do."

Professor Layton came home that evening to find Flora hard at work sewing a very lumpy looking green jacket. Then the next day he found her in front of the mirror, trying to look as angry as possible and reciting some rather generic police quotes in a hoarse voice. For days after that he kept coming across her doing similar such things and if nothing else she seemed to be getting better at the sewing, so he took pride in knowing that she'd finally found a hobby that was better suited to her than cooking.

It was many months later when he past Inspector Chelmey on the way home from work, bid him a good afternoon and continued on his way without a backwards glance.

Because of that, he missed the moment when Chelmey leaned over to another policeman and whispered, "I think that I actually fooled him!"

"Wait until you get a speaking part, then it really gets difficult," the policeman grumbled back.

But secretly, Don Paolo was actually very proud of the progress that his unexpected student had made. This was the beginning of a very interesting friendship.


End file.
